Sunday, October 11, 2015

Bad Fundamentalist Poesie - from the Cold Dirt Press archives





Despite the fact that convicted child molester Warren Jeffs is incarcerated in federal prison, he still has his minions at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to do his bidding and they apparently have the funds to publish and distribute apocalyptic warnings to government agencies and schools. Some news stories state that the recipients are throwing the mailing in the trash.

Imagine my glee when my sister showed me a copy that was sent to the school where she worked. Being a Subgenius connoisseur of schizophrenic ramblings from way back, I was fascinated and asked if I could keep it. The bland tome is devoid of any images or color, only black text on cheap paper stock with a hefty title on the matte finish cover:
Words are randomly capitalized and the psychotic warnings repeat for all of the target populations starting with the generalized Nations of the Earth (someone watched a few too many 1950s science fiction movies) to the United States, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Latvia, NATO, the Vatican and so on.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Shop Window Archeology


The center of my adopted hometown of Bloomfield, NJ is undergoing extensive urban renewal and I have mixed feelings about that. This was an area that I visited when I first went to Upsala College in East Orange back in the early 1980s. It remained a place caught in a vortex, clinging to the past so tightly that it was chosen several times as a sure-fire film location to evoke Mid-Century Modern, but there was economic blight blanketing the nostalgia with empty storefronts and crime. 

Back in 2012 I took some photos of the shop windows and now those businesses and buildings are gone. Here are those pictures resurrected from the Cold Dirt Press site and preserved for your enjoyment. 




Relief through Belief


Patent



The Party's Over


Cough syrup by the dram


Guess the meds


Historical pharmacy


Designer drugs

Dada lives!